Proud to be a 'f******* redneck': The teenager expecting a baby with Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter

The teenager expecting a baby with the 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin calls himself 'a f***ing redneck' on his MySpace page.

Levi Johnston, 18, a high-school hockey player, is engaged to Bristol Palin, whose pregnancy was revealed to the Republican party convention just days after her 44-year-old mother was picked as John McCain's running mate.

He is the high-school sweetheart of the Alaska governor's daughter and used his home page to admit having a girlfriend, but said: 'I don't want kids.'

Proud redneck: Levi Johnston, 18, the father of Bristol Palin's unborn baby. Bristol is seen here with her five-month-old baby brother Trig

The hockey player with the Wasilla Warriors in Alaska was said to have made no secret of the pregnancy in his home town.

On the page he also says: 'But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s*** and just chillin' I guess'

He added: 'Ya f *** with me I'll kick [your] ass'

Johnston has also been in trouble with the law, for taking king salmon from a lake out of season.

Bristol's pregnancy was revealed after a string of rumours suggested that Mrs Palin's five-month-old baby son was actually her grandson.

A series of internet postings circulated for up to 48 hours before the Alaskan governor announced last night that Bristol, 17, was five months pregnant and would marry the father of the child.

One blog, DailyKos, published a story headlined "Sarah Palin is NOT the mother". Blogger ArcXIX wrote: "Sarah, I'm calling you a liar. And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson. The sooner you come forward with this revelation to the public, the better.'

The onslaught forced the Republicans into the announcement, shocking delegates at their convention in Minneapolis-St Paul, despite the political risk.

Pregnant: Bristol Palin, 17, stands near Mr McCain

Aides insisted Mr McCain, 72, was aware of the daughter’s pregnancy when he picked Mrs Palin, 44, as his number two.

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But Democrat critics were already questioning his vetting process after it was revealed the Arizona senator had only met the former beauty queen once before last week.

Republican officials said Mrs Palin decided to announce the pregnancy publicly to counteract ‘despicable’ Internet rumours that she faked the pregnancy of her fifth child to cover up for her daughter.

According to some ‘mud-slinging’ liberal bloggers, Mrs Palin pretended to have given birth in May to her fifth child, a son named Trig who has Down's syndrome.

The unfounded suggestion was that Trig was actually Bristol Palin's child and that Sarah Palin was the grandmother.

Although she didn’t directly address the gossip, Mrs Palin said she supported her daughter and gave no indication that the scandal would affect her new job.

'We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us,’ said Mrs Palin, a staunch pro-life supporter.

‘Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned.

‘As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.

Awkward: Johnston and the Palin family have some bad blood over comments he made about them in the media

‘Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realise very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family.

'We ask the media, respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates,’ she added.

The statement, released by the McCain campaign, doesn’t give the father’s full name.

The age of consent in Alaska is 16 and couples can marry when they are under 18 only with both parents’ consent.

The latest sensational twist emerged after a new poll suggested that Mr McCain’s gamble on wooing disgruntled Hillary Clinton voters by selecting a woman may have backfired.

More Democratic women said they were less likely to switch allegiance to the Republicans after Mrs Palin was picked as vice-presidential candidate.

A USA Today/Gallup survey also found most Americans hadn’t even heard of the her before she was plucked from the relative obscurity of Alaskan politics by Mr McCain – and just 39 per cent said they think she is ready to be president if she is called upon.

That’s the lowest vote of confidence in a running mate since 'Dunce' Dan Quayle’s famously rocky but ultimately successful teaming with the elder George Bush in 1988.

Among Democrat women, including those who may be disappointed that Mrs Clinton lost out in the primary race, 15 per cent said Mrs Palin’s selection makes them less likely to vote for Mr McCain, while 9 per cent said it might make them change sides.

The debate over Mr McCain’s risky gamble raged on as the party leadership fought to turn the havoc wrought on their convention plans by Hurricane Gustav to their advantage.

After setting aside today to a low-key business only opening session in St Paul, Minnesota, Mr McCain was pushing his new theme of ‘Country First.’

While the hurricane denied the Arizona senator the intense media coverage he was hoping for, it also helped distance him from President Bush, who cancelled his opening day speech to focus on disaster planning.

‘I have every expectation that we will not see the mistakes of Katrina repeated,’ Mr McCain said yesterday, referring to Bush administration’s botched handling of the flood mayhem in New Orleans three years ago.

The McCain camp is determined to use the storm to highlight their candidate’s much-vaunted leadership qualities.

Sarah Palin's daughters from left, Piper, Willow and Bristol are seen in December 2006 at the Governor's mansion Alaska.

‘This is a time when we have to do away with our party politics and we have to act as Americans,’ he added in a video link with supporters.

Prominent religious conservatives, many of whom have been lukewarm toward McCain's candidacy, predicted that Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy would not diminish conservative Christian enthusiasm over the vice presidential hopeful.

'I think it's a very private matter,' said Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America.

'It's a matter that should stay in the family and they have to work through it together. My prayers go out to them.

'We're excited about the governor and think she's going to do well.'

Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law, said: 'We're all sinners.

'We all make mistakes. Certainly, the ideal is not to get pregnant out of wedlock. But she made the right decision after her mistake,' he said.

Staver also criticised anyone who would seek to make it a negative campaign issue.

He said: 'It's absolutely shameful to put her child in the spotlight. She's not running for office. When someone can't face issues, they try to tear down a family.'

For 72-year- old McCain, who has already fought skin cancer, that is a major problem. It also makes it harder for his campaign to attack Obama for his lack of experience.

Back home in Alaska, however, supporters won't hear a word against their governor of just 21 months.

Ms Palin said she had her husband Todd were giving their daughter their full support

Many think she bears a striking resemblance to Lynda Carter, the star of the 1970s TV series, Wonder Woman, and appear to credit her with similar superpowers. The list of her accomplishments grows by the hour.

She has not merely risen with breakneck speed, from the mayoralty of the one-horse town of Wasilla (population 6,715, according to its website) to within touching distance of the White House.

She is, so her mother assures us, a tough-as-steak Alaskan frontierswoman who loves ice-fishing, trapping giant crabs (the biggest of which now takes pride of place on her coffee table) and shooting caribou, which she makes into 'moose-burgers' she washes down with a cold beer.

A fiercely matriarchal 'hockey mom' who commutes 40 miles to her office in Anchorage rather than swap her quaint family home for the official governor's residence, somehow Mrs Palin also finds time to raise her children.

Oh yes, and she was a brilliant sportswoman, nicknamed Sarah Barracuda, who bravely overcame an injured ankle to score the winning points with seconds remaining of the state schools' basketball championships.

Phew! Even Wonder Woman would be hard-pressed to match that little list, which is being used as proof that, despite her palpable lack of experience, Mrs Palin is ready to assume the second most powerful job on earth, and possibly the first.

Ms Palin has angrily denied her four- month-old son Trig is actually the child of her daughter Bristol

But is the Alaskan ice warrior, whose political conviction and zeal have drawn comparisons with the young Margaret Thatcher, really the genuine article?

As the Democrats set about sifting through every small detail of her professional and personal life, we will surely soon find out.

The scurrilous baby rumours may be just the start - in a state where the politics is as dark and slippery as Alaskan oil, there appears to be muck aplenty.

Indeed, the ice queen is said to be embroiled in sufficient scandals in her home state to make the corridors of power 3,000 miles away in Washington seem positively virtuous.

The next murky saga to be explored is sure to be the ' Troopergate' affair.

It centres on Alaska's former public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, one of several key officials to have been ruthlessly dismissed by Mrs Palin.

In a case now being investigated by the state legislature committee, Mr Monegan claims he was sacked in an act of petty revenge.

He says the governor was behind a plot to get rid of him because he refused to act on her instructions and fire her brother-in-law Mike Wooten, a state trooper who was embroiled in a bitter divorce from Mrs Palin's sister.

The episode dates back to 2005, when Mr Wooten was suspended from duty amid claims that he unlawfully shot a moose and fired a Taser gun at his ten-year-old stepson. Mrs Palin also claims he threatened to kill her father, Charles, a retired athletics coach.

When Mrs Palin took office, her husband, Todd - a rugged BP oil executive and fishery boss who she calls 'The First Dude' - hired a private detective to draw up a dossier on Mr Wooten, and took it to Mr Monegan. However, Mr Wooten was allowed to remain in his job.

Mrs Palin has insisted she had no involvement in Mr Monegan's subsequent sacking.

However, in a potentially damaging interview last weekend, the former safety commissioner insisted this is untrue - and claimed she personally emailed and spoke to him about the case.

This hardly squares with Mr McCain's proclamation that, in old Klondike mining territory, he has unearthed a rare gem, untainted by grubby politics.

And there is more. In her acceptance speech last week, Mrs Palin played up her penchant for using taxpayers' money wisely.

She cited as a prime example, the fact that she blocked the building of the 'Bridge to Nowhere' - which would have provided access to an island airport reachable only by ferry, but at a cost Palin considered too great considering the number of passengers it would benefit. She ordered a 'fiscally responsible alternative' to be found.

It now emerges, however, that at first she actually supported the Build the Bridge campaign, and made a very un-Maggie like U-turn - a detail she failed to mention.

So, is the woman who wears her hair in a fashionably retro Fifties beehive and prefers a checked shirt and jeans to a power-dresser's suit really ready to serve?

Will McCain's left-field pick prove the most inspired gamble in postwar U.S. political history - or the most disastrous mistake since George Bush Snr chose to run with Dan Quayle, the gaffe-prone senator who couldn't spell 'potato'?

The answers will emerge in the final ten weeks of this enthralling election campaign.

But for all the skeletons in her gun cabinet, don't back against the mooseburger-munching frontierswoman bagging a place in history. For as Obama himself had to concede, hers is a remarkable story. And Americans love nothing better than someone who proves the possibility of the American Dream.

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Proud to be a 'f******* redneck': The teenager expecting a baby with Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter